


One Surprise After Another

by afteriwake



Series: A Different Path [8]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-24
Updated: 2014-08-24
Packaged: 2018-02-14 13:47:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2194041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afteriwake/pseuds/afteriwake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's the day before Sherlock and Molly are supposed to go to San Diego for her conference, but it seems as though plans keep changing for the two of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Surprise After Another

**Author's Note:**

> I seriously have had this story partially finished on my hard drive for a month and a half. Thankfully it is done, and now I can write more for this series. Enjoy!

Sherlock had gotten a voicemail from Molly the day before they were supposed to leave to come down to the morgue. The tone in her voice had told him it was urgent and probably not good news, and so he had made it a point to get there as quickly as possible. He made his way to the basement and saw her staring off into space. He moved into her line of vision and she started slightly. “I'm sorry. I was lost in thought.”

“Is everything all right?” he asked.

She shook her head. “The conference got canceled. Turns out the money to cover everything wasn't there and the people organizing it decided to shut it down at the last minute.”

“Do you still get the time off?” he asked, moving over towards her.

“I'm still waiting to find out. I told my supervisors my reservations were non-refundable, and I'm not on the schedule at all until I was supposed to come back, so hopefully that will factor into them letting me have the time off.” She sighed. “I'd been looking forward to it, too. It's not often I get to meet with people who do what I do on a level like that.”

“Maybe I can distract you?” he suggested.

“What did you have in mind?” she asked, a curious look on her face.

“Lunch, to start,” he said. “Unless you've already eaten.”

“No, I haven't,” she said, giving him a small smile. “I'll take lunch for now. Let me just finish up and we can go for a--” Suddenly a ringing phone was heard in the office. “I'm sorry. I need to take that.” She stripped off her gloves and tossed them on the table as she hurried to the office. Sherlock waited patiently outside for a moment before drifting over to the body she had been autopsying, studying it for a few minutes. Finally she came back out and he looked up, seeing she had a wide grin on her face. “I got the days off!” she said excitedly.

“That's very good to hear,” he said with a grin of his own. “So tomorrow morning we'll be flying out to San Diego?”

She nodded. “It will be nice to have a bit of a vacation, though without the conference going on we'll have to figure out things to do to amuse ourselves.”

“I can think of a few things,” he replied.

She shook her head. “We can't spend all out time in the hotel room, Sherlock. Some time, but not all. I want to take the opportunity to explore.”

He chuckled slightly. “That wasn't what I meant. I wasn't going to be at the conference with you so I looked into various things that are available throughout the county. And since your days are free we could always go farther afield. We don't necessarily have to stay in San Diego County the entire time.”

“I would love to go to Hollywood for a day,” she said brightly. “I mean, if you want to.”

“You are more than welcome to plan our entire trip, if you want.” He nodded over towards the body on her table. “How much longer until you're done?”

“I just need to sew him back up,” she said, going over for fresh gloves. She pulled a pair out and then put them on. “Do you want to wait in the office?”

He shook his head. “It's not often I get to watch you work anymore. I don't mind waiting out here.”

She laughed a bit. “I still have trouble wrapping my head around that sometimes, that you don't think what I do is gross or weird. I like it a lot, though.”

“I'd considered going into your field at one point,” he said. “I think I decided not to because forensic pathology meant I would need to deal with DIs and homicides and at that point I wasn't wanting to go back to that life.”

“If Moriarty hadn't made this an extended game do you think you would have gone back to it after the first case?” she asked, picking up her equipment to do the sutures with.

“I think so,” he replied with a nod. “There was a thrill to it when I was younger. It tapered off as I got older and I found I had sorely missed it, even when I washed my hands of consulting. It was back when I worked on the first case as an adult, and it's still here now.”

“You do miss what you used to do a bit, though, don't you?” she asked.

“A bit. I do certainly miss aspects of it, like the money I made and the chance to help make new discoveries. That provided a sort of validation on its own, when a experiment I'd had a part in led to a new medicine or some other improvement to the world. The one time I regret what I did was when we were working on that poison for the government. I think if I had convinced others to leave sooner it never would have been developed enough to give to Moriarty to give to the cabbie.”

“You don't know that, though,” she said adamantly, stopping what she was doing. “They could have simply replaced you and everyone else who objected and done the research even more secretly. The uproar you made kept it from being used on a worldwide scale. You should be proud of that.”

“I suppose,” he conceded. “As it stands, I have decided to do occasional work in my former field, to help colleagues of mine. Having someone who is an impartial third party going over results makes the discoveries more credible.”

“That's good!” she said with a wide smile. “Then you get the best of both worlds. You get to do your consulting and the research work you've done for so long.”

“Plus the extra money won't hurt,” he said with a grin of his own. 

“No, I can imagine it won't hurt at all.” She went back to what she was doing. “Is it easier, now that John is there?”

“Financially or otherwise?” he asked in an amused tone.

“Well, I meant otherwise, but feel free to tell me for both,” she said with a chuckle.

“It's nice to have more money to myself,” he replied, moving closer to the table to get a closer view. “But more than that, it's nice to have the company. Having Mrs. Hudson there was one thing, but she's in an entirely different part of the flat. Having someone I interact with on a more regular basis is still a bit jarring but overall I welcome it.”

“That's good. I think he's a very good man and he's a good friend for you to have.”

“I don't have many friends. It's nice to have another one.” He watched for a few seconds before leaning in to look at the man's thigh. “Molly?”

“Yes?” she asked, stopping what she was doing.

“What was cause of death?”

“An allergic reaction to something, though I'm waiting to find out exactly what. Why?”

He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out the pocket magnifier he always kept there. He leaned in again and used the magnifier. “Come take a look.”

She moved around from her side and joined him. He moved slightly and she leaned in, examining the skin under the pocket magnifier. “That's an injection mark,” she said, turning to look at him.

“Did he have an EpiPen?” he asked.

She moved away from the body again and went to the list of what had come in with him. “It's not listed on here, but according to his medical records he had a severe allergy to shellfish so I'm assuming he would probably have one nearby.” Then her eyes widened. “You think it was tampered with.”

He nodded. “The injection mark is fresh, meaning he attempted to administer the EpiPen. If he died from his allergic reaction either it worked and he didn't get to a hospital in time or the EpiPen was tampered with.”

“I'll call DI Dimmock and tell him to have their crime scene technicians check the crime scene to see if there was one there,” she said.

“And if there wasn't it's an even surer sign it was murder.”

“You have very sharp eyes,” she replied. “I had completely missed it, and I should have caught that.”

“It happens on occasion,” he replied. “Usually you are quite thorough. I know some of the cases I've solved would have been more baffling if it hadn't been for the detail of your reports.”

“Still, this is going to bother me,” she said with a frown. Then she sighed. “It was probably worry that I would have to work for the next week and lose all that money and not get the opportunity for a vacation.”

“Most likely. So long as you don't rush through any other autopsies you might have you should be fine for the rest of your shift.”

“Actually, this was my last one,” she said. “Now it's just down to writing reports.” She went back to where she had her equipment and began doing the sutures. It didn't take her very long, and he could admit she really was quite efficient. Finally she moved him to the refrigeration unit and pulled out a drawer, getting him on it by herself and then pushing it back in. She looked over at him when she was done. “As soon as I change out of my lab coat I can go.”

He nodded and followed her into the office. “How long of a lunch can you take?” he asked.

“An hour,” she replied. “Why?”

“I was just wondering,” he replied.

She began to grin at him. “Sherlock, were you hoping I'd decide to skip eating any food and maybe let you have your wicked way with me?”

“That had been a thought,” he admitted. “But if you're hungry we don't have to.”

She moved closer to him. “I don't know. That could be a very enjoyable hour,” she said as she placed her hands on his chest and toyed with one of the buttons on his shirt. “And I do live quite close.”

“Yes, you do,” he said with a slight nod.

“Well, I suppose I can go without lunch. But there will be dinner tonight because I'll be starved by the time my shift is over,” she said as she looked up at him.

“I can agree to that,” he murmured, placing a hand on either side of her waist. “I'll even let you choose.”

“Good,” she said before leaning in and kissing him softly. He just began to kiss her back when she pulled away, and she chuckled slightly at the confused look on his face. “The more time we spend here the less time we can spend doing more of that somewhere a bit more private.”

“Ah,” he said with a nod. He let go of her and she got out of her lab coat and hung it on a peg in the office. Then she went over and picked up her purse before extending her hand towards him. He grasped it and she nearly pulled him out of the office and towards the doors. He grinned a bit at that. She seemed to be quite eager, and he appreciated that. They made their way to the lift and she pressed the button. “It's at the top floor,” she said with a sigh.

“Perhaps you could take a slightly longer lunch?” he suggested.

“Perhaps,” she said thoughtfully. “But not much longer. Maybe fifteen minutes?”

“That would still leave almost an hour,” he said.

“And there's quite a bit we could do in that amount of time,” she said with a grin. Then her grin faltered when she heard the service lift doors open. “Oh, no,” she said.

“Another body for you to autopsy?” he asked.

“Most likely,” she said with a sigh. He glanced in the direction of the service lift and after a moment saw an orderly pushing a rolling table with a body in a body bag on it. “I need to sign for that?” she called over.

The orderly nodded. “I'll wheel him in for you.”

“Thank you.” Sherlock turned back to her. “I suppose our plans are postponed. And another autopsy means I'll be here even longer doing paperwork to make sure it's done before tomorrow morning. I'm sorry.”

“It's all right. I can get some takeaway for us and bring it back here for us to eat, and I can do the same for your supper if you need me to.”

“You are very considerate,” she said with a smile. She leaned in and kissed his cheek. “I'm in the mood for Chinese.”

“I'll get you your usual, then,” he replied. She nodded and then made her way into her morgue. He watched for a moment and then turned his attention back to the lift. After a few minutes it opened and he stepped inside. Nothing had gone according to plan lately, but at least she would still get to spend a week with him away from all of this. All they had to get through was today, and he was fairly sure they both could do that.


End file.
